Drawings for the great fountains of Rome and Paris.

Designers of fountains consider how water should move - with gentle insistence or raging force; how water should sound - as a soothing trickle or a surging splash; and how water should look - clear and smooth or white and frothy. In the past, monumental public drinking fountains played a significant role in the well-being of European city dwellers. They were also landmarks designed to impress and to reinforce a sense of community as people met around them while collecting their daily water supply.

Urban fountains embodying symbolic, artistic, and cultural ideas attest to the…